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Deeplinks Blog

Deeplinks Blog

States are often the “laboratories of democracy,” to borrow a phrase from U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis. They lead the way to react quickly to technological advances, establish important rights, and sometimes pass laws that serve as a template for others across the country. This year, EFF worked—and fought—alongside...

In 2018, we learned that expanded biometric surveillance is coming to an airport near you. This includes face recognition, iris scans, and fingerprints. And government agencies aren’t saying anything about how they will protect this highly sensitive information. This fall, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) published their Biometrics...

This year, we refocused our attention on Offline, our project that seeks to raise awareness of and provide actions readers can take to support imprisoned bloggers, digital activists, and technologists. Originally launched in 2015, Offline currently features six individuals from four countries whose critical voices have been silenced by...

Open access is the common-sense idea that scientific research (especially scientific research funded by the government or philanthropic foundations) should be available to the public—ideally with no legal or technical barriers to access and reuse. EFF is a longtime supporter of the open access movement: we think that promoting broad...

In an era where political and corporate leaders are attacking the free press as “the enemy of the people,” it’s crucial that we recognize the truth: journalists every day are uncovering stories that protect our rights and hold those in power accountable. Meanwhile, as the media landscape shrinks, non-profits are...

2018 marked the launch of EFF's new logo, nicknamed “Insider”—the first new logo we’ve had since EFF’s founding in 1990!The logo is the result of approximately a year of development. In 2017, EFF received a generous offer of a pro bono logo and identity design from...

The digital rights movement showed its strength this year by projecting influence in jurisdictions across the United States. Community organizations on both coasts, as well as the Midwest and the South, took action, promoting issues from net neutrality and civilian oversight of local police surveillance to the right to repair...

In 2018, technologists and users continued to be plagued by abstract, ridiculous software patents. The good news is there are more ways than ever before to fight back against those patents—some of them pretty effective. Unfortunately, patent trolls and abusive patent owners are working overtime to knock down those recent...

In the waning hours of 2017, the Federal Communications Commission voted to repeal the 2015 Open Internet Order, ending net neutrality protections for the millions of Americans who support them. The fallout of that decision continued all throughout 2018, with attempts to reverse the FCC in Congress, new state laws...

In 2018, federal courts across the country have been asked whether members of the public have a First Amendment right to speak on government social media pages. Three of these cases have been bumped up to appellate courts for review prompting numerous people to write into EFF, their local papers...

The First Step Act of 2018 (S. 3649) is now federal law. The criminal justice reform law has been widely hailed as long overdue, and rightly so. But as we turn to its implementation, we urge policymakers to take care with the central provision of the bill that...

As 2018 draws to a close, we’ve gathered together some of EFF’s key legal wins this year. Some of these wins are only stops along the way to a larger goal, but each is hard fought, whether we’re serving as counsel or amicus curiae. Every one of these victories helped...

Your rights go with you when you go online. That’s the simple premise that has guided EFF’s work for 28 years. To make this premise real in 2018, we worked to ensure that law, corporate policies, and software are all hard-coded with the principles of free speech, privacy, and the...